The Most Astonishing Thing Recently Happened to Me

 by Olena Vlasyuk

            For all my life I will remember the 22th of February. It began from unexpected call from my mother's boss, whom I always hated. He asked whether he could send me money for Maidan needs. 

That was really nice of him and I promised to give it to wounded people or their relatives. Then I called my mother and promised her not to go there, to keep myself safe, stay in the office and go home immediately after I finish. While telling that I was thinking how to get on Maidan and Mykhalivska square by foot from the office.

            The atmosphere in the office was hotter than ever, 2 hot line phones were owerhelmed by volonteers and people willing to give food, medicine, clothes, cars, flats. As usual, one person was monitoring our facebook page, two people were taking calls and one person worked with base in which recently we had added a sheet called "Dead" to the exicting sheets «Wounded» with dates and surnames. There was a tension in the air, we quarreled about tables, sheets, information from coordinators in hospitals, what to do with all these medicine, should we refuse the volunteers, is that information certain, can we trust that coordinator, where should we take the new phones, who is responsible for that mistake and so on. One girl started to cry, because her colleague accused her of unprofessional work with volunteers, she was too soft with them, he thought. I was angry for all this chaos,  everybody was paying attention to unnecessary things, we missed huge amount of calls, the inefficient organization irritated me enormously.

            “Guard in Hospital”, said I quickly, “I'm listening to you”. The old lady's voice asked me whether we knew something about Ihor Klymenko, her son. Her son didn't answer the phone, either his comrades from  Maidan. I checked his surname in the base and said “Your son is in the 17^th hospital, the phone of coordinator is....” She interrupted me and started to cry saying “he is alive, thanks God”. The last time she talked to him was this morning, this bloody morning, when we were writing surnames in the sheet called “Dead”. She kept crying and thanking, and I coudn`t hold my own tears. I told the mother that her son is alive when she thought the worst – that was the most astonishing thing that happened to me ever in my life. After her call the anger and despair went away but it returned in the same evening on Maidan, when I understood how many people didn't heard the words “your child is alive”.